In one month, it’s had almost 1K views and has been downloaded 20 times.

That’s great exposure for us, but it also proves the worth of SlideShare as a platform for sharing your brand’s or business’ knowledge and information for both marketing and lead generation purposes.

Make Your Content Simple and Memorable

Think of SlideShare as a modern PowerPoint platform, then think of what makes PowerPoint presentations bad. We’ve all had to sit through meetings, lectures or training sessions where a whole heap of content is dumped onto presentation slides.

This usually leads to one or more of the following things: there’s not enough time to read and process the content before the slide is moved along; by the time you’ve moved on to the next slide, you’ve forgotten what the last one said; and you wonder why you’re even having to listen to someone talk over the presentation when everything that’s being said is written on the slides.

Now, SlideShare allows you the time to leisurely read through a presentation, but that doesn’t mean that keeping your content simple and uncluttered shouldn’t be taken into consideration.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

“Look for redundancies: It is important to repeat your main points; however, don’t overdo it. Follow these simple steps: Introduce your idea, explain it and then summarize it. If you’re repeating an idea more than three times, you’re probably going overboard.

Let it sit. After you have completed your presentation, walk away from it. Put some time and space in between you and your presentation so that you can review it later with fresh eyes. Your renewed perspective will help you notice unnecessary elements.

Think like an audience member. Remove unnecessary jargon that will make your presentation wordy. Speak in the active verb tense rather than a passive one whenever possible. Be conversational, fun and lighthearted, if appropriate. The goal is to make your presentation enjoyable for the audience, so don’t overload them with anything that doesn’t serve an important function.”

We couldn’t agree more. Make it concise and simple and people will remember it. If you can’t cut down on certain content and it’s bulking out a slide a little too much, then think about splitting it across two slides instead.

Obviously this will depend upon the information you’re sharing, but if you’re dealing with some complicated or lengthier information, then our next tip carries even more weight.

Keep Your Design Clean and Uncluttered

Keeping in the same vein as Schwertly’s tips: keep it simple. Our illustrator here at TMO, Jordan, shares these tips for getting the best out of your presentations:

Stick to a consistent colour scheme. Select a colour palette that reflects your branding, but also the message of the presentation. Personally, we like to use limited colour palettes with our designs, but there’s no strict rule on how many to use. As long as the key information is highlighted in some way using colour, you’re on the right track.

Use grids or guides. Basically if you are designing something visually, a grid system or a guide system will help you to keep the spacing and formatting the same across the slides.

Avoid using Clipart and keep stock images to a minimum. While it’s not always possible with short deadlines, always try and create original imagery. It doesn’t matter whether it’s photography or illustration, having your own imagery allows you more creative control over your brand identity. It will also allow you to have more impact that using ready-made imagery.

Be interesting with your compositions.If you’re doing a presentation, you don’t want every slide to look the same. Using a grid or a guide system doesn’t mean you have to stick to a rigid layout. Instead, experiment with the elements on your page using scale, symmetry and perspective to create a visual narrative that runs through your presentation.

Use the Right Format

SlideShare actually supports a range of file formats, which makes it easier to upload existing content you may have to it. That being said, the best way to ensure that your uploaded SlideShare displays as close to your original file is to upload is as a PDf. PDF files will provide the highest quality and ensure that custom fonts, images, and layouts will be retained.

SlideShare also allows you to upload documents, again in Adobe PDF (.pdf) format, but also in Microsoft Word (.doc/ .docx/ .rtf), OpenOffice Documents (.odt) and most .txt files

Infographics:

You can also upload your infographics as long as they’re in Adobe PDF (.pdf) format.

Your hyperlinks should also be formatted properly in order for them to link out. You can’t have hyperlinks in the first three pages of your presentation, or in infographics at all.

If you’re creating a presentation in PowerPoint, then you need to make sure that you use the insert/hyperlink command. If you’re using a PDF, then make sure that your PDF creation tool preserves hyperlinks when it saves the file.

Share and Promote on Social

Because SlideShare is a LinkedIn company, it has some great options for sharing. You can easily share the link via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, but it also gives you options for sharing via email, an embed and a WordPress Shortcode, and a direct link—all readily available when you upload your presentation.

Make the most of these channels and share your presentation to generate more engagement and widen your reach.

SlideShare have just announced that they’ll soon be rolling out some of their premium features to all users. These will include more detailed analytics for insight into who’s viewing your presentations, which sites are giving you an extra boost, and measure and analyse engagement. You’ll also soon be able to create a distinct brand identity on your profile page with Profile Customization and also start showcasing your professional videos.

Get Help with Your Presentations

If you’d like some simple, customised illustrations or a full-blown infographic and presentation to go with it, why not get in touch? We can help to maximise the reach and exposure of your brand or business by helping to share your expertise or services in new and creative ways. Give us a call on 0161 968 2079 or drop us an email at info@themediaoctopus.com and we can see what we can do!

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